Head of Egyptian antiquity council files complaint against high school: 'Ancient Egyptians built pyramids. Why do they teach otherwise?'

Smadar Perry|Published: 27.02.07 , 09:32

"It is well known that the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids; they regarded these structures as a national project for ancient Egypt," said Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

Hawass filed an official complaint to the Egyptian attorney general of Egypt against a Cairo high school for teaching the students that it was the Israelites who built the pyramids.

Hawass, prominent figure in Egyptian culture and around the Arab world, criticized the school curriculum for "insisting that the Jews built the pyramids and highlighting the fact that those who refused to partake in the building were physically tortured."

The longstanding debate over who built the five pyramids of Giza, West of Cairo, was rekindled at the first official visit of an Israeli delegation
to Egypt, in 1977.

"We built the pyramids," said the late Prime Minster Menahem Begin at the National Museum in Cairo. He spurred fury among Egyptian historians and archeologists. Subsequently, the Egyptian press was full of protest articles.

The Egyptian Antiquities Authority, headed by Minister of Culture Farouk Hosny, announced on Monday that they objected to a proposal by a group of American Rabbis to establish an international committee to see into renovating Jewish sites in Egypt, including synagogues and cemeteries.